2022 NBA Draft: The Life of Paolo

JakeRae

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Denver pick likely conveys next year as a 20 something pick
Detroit pick likely conveys in 2025 as a pick around 20
Washington pick could be mid teens, or 10 or worse in 2026. Honestly I'm pretty sour o. Washington , this pick might turn into #2s in 26 and 27
This is about where I was thinking but I have Detroit more likely late teens in 2025 (not a huge difference ce from around 20).
 

BigMike

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Dominick Barlow still on the board, Celtics one pick away. I know someone was hoping for that
 

Jimbodandy

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The writeup on Matkovic, "Playing with Nikola Jovic in Serbia last year, he wasn't on anyone's prospect radar. Until scouts started coming to the games and noticed 'hey, that guy is fucking tall too'."
 

128

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He'll fit right in!

Although Davison led Alabama rotation players with 9.2 assists per 100 possessions, his 6.1 turnovers per 100 possessions were also the highest. He shot 30.1 percent from three-point range, third-best among rotation players on a team that finished 300th in Division I in overall three-point percentage.
 

BigMike

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Good to see he is 6'2". With the announcers calling him a small guard and watching his highlights I thought he was under 6'

underwhelming, but who knows, we've seen plenty of guys who sounded good on draft night who couldn't play. So maybe this is the opposite
 

Cellar-Door

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Good to see he is 6'2". With the announcers calling him a small guard and watching his highlights I thought he was under 6'

underwhelming, but who knows, we've seen plenty of guys who sounded good on draft night who couldn't play. So maybe this is the opposite
Fake 6'2, he's 6'0.5 without shoes
 

nighthob

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Kemba Part 2 is in the works o_O

My 12yr old wanted Barlow or Foster, can't argue with him
Tell your 12 year old that I feel his pain. Those were my preferences when #53 rolled around. Still, with only four picks left in the draft maybe they can land Barlow as a free agent. (Assuming he goes undrafted, anyway.)
 

nighthob

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I guess their proximity to SillyCon Valley made it inevitable that the Warriors would select a GUI sooner or later.
 

Justthetippett

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Yeah…. Seems like a long shot. At this point in the draft, guys that succeed have at least one clear NBA trait/skill. He looks athletic but not sure that’s enough. Maybe his TOs will disappear just like Neismith’s shot.
 

BigMike

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no comment on his bball abilities but the short shorts and thick thighs combo are strongly reminiscent of Carsen Edwards.
Well at least he had more assists than turnovers this year, so that puts him ahead of Edwards. As soon as I saw CE ended his college career with a 42pt, 0 assist game I didn't believe he'd be an NBA PG
 

Auger34

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Looking at the big boards for Vecenie, KOC, and Givony it seems like Davison is good pick. The only player that I’ve seen consistently rated higher than him that we passed on was Justin Lewis
 

Cellar-Door

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Looking at the big boards for Vecenie, KOC, and Givony it seems like Davison is good pick. The only player that I’ve seen consistently rated higher than him that we passed on was Justin Lewis
who just signed with the Bulls
 

ElUno20

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In Kevin O'Connor's draft analysis, 29 of the 30 first round picks got a B or better grade with 16 getting an A.

Did everyone have a great draft and this was the best group of players in forever?
 

nighthob

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Maybe he was grading on the curve and his protractor was warped? I mean I see a lot of guys that are going to have long NBA careers. But will spend most of it competing for the Old English Award (best wood polisher at the end of the bench).
 

HomeRunBaker

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In Kevin O'Connor's draft analysis, 29 of the 30 first round picks got a B or better grade with 16 getting an A.

Did everyone have a great draft and this was the best group of players in forever?
It’s 2022. Everybody wins weeeeeee!!!
 

Sam Ray Not

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Wow, GS should have traded the pick. I might like the 6'4 260 pound guy more. I guess it boils down to if you believe the combine performance was injury and not his true athleticism. Because his physical numbers were AWFUL
Definitely the former. He's been playing for over a year on a messed up ankle that still is not completely healed; and apparently jumped wrong at the combine vert. According to his agent (fwiw), his vert has been at 36" everywhere he's gone since the combine. Either way, a 9'-2.5" standing reach and 7'-2" wingspan remain great physical numbers. His college career — just 11 injury-plagued games — was a nightmare, but two years ago he was the #1 prospect in his class. Nice pre-draft piece on him, for anyone interested:

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/2022-nba-draft-profile-after-flameout-at-milwaukee-patrick-baldwin-jr-is-this-years-top-wild-card-prospect/

Seems like a reasonable high-upside play at #28, where you're far more likely to find a Jacob Evans than a Jordan Poole. Fwiw, KOC's friendly grading system gave the pick an A+.
 

BigMike

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In Kevin O'Connor's draft analysis, 29 of the 30 first round picks got a B or better grade with 16 getting an A.

Did everyone have a great draft and this was the best group of players in forever?
Was it Roddy or Watson who scored sub B? And what was the grade? CBS Sportsline had basically the same curve with Watson getting the only sub B at B-
 

cheech13

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In Kevin O'Connor's draft analysis, 29 of the 30 first round picks got a B or better grade with 16 getting an A.

Did everyone have a great draft and this was the best group of players in forever?
It’s a feedback loop. KOC isn’t a great talent evaluator on his own, so his big board looks like what his team sources tell them. Then when those teams take the players they already told him they liked he praises the fit.
 

Cellar-Door

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In Kevin O'Connor's draft analysis, 29 of the 30 first round picks got a B or better grade with 16 getting an A.

Did everyone have a great draft and this was the best group of players in forever?
I think it's as simple as..... Draft grades are fundamentally stupid, and nobody should be getting D's or F's for picks unless they are going to left field. This was a pretty flat class too so every pick was pretty defensible. Giving out low grades in immediate reaction draft articles is 100% just click chasing. Also, I'd note that grading a pick has little to do with how strong the draft class is. If the class sucks but everyone takes a player who fits their team and is one of the better players on the board, they get good grades, because the pick was a good one, even if the player pool stinks.

It’s a feedback loop. KOC isn’t a great talent evaluator on his own, so his big board looks like what his team sources tell them. Then when those teams take the players they already told him they liked he praises the fit.
I don't think this. KOC came up and got his big national job because he had one of the best draft guides every year not based on team sources but in depth breakdowns of players. He's a good draft guy and not because of team sources, now he probably doesn't put quite as much time into the draft anymore now that he's an overall NBA guy, but he's still better than your average NBA analyst on the draft.
 

tims4wins

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I think it's as simple as..... Draft grades are fundamentally stupid, and nobody should be getting D's or F's for picks unless they are going to left field. This was a pretty flat class too so every pick was pretty defensible. Giving out low grades in immediate reaction draft articles is 100% just click chasing.


I don't think this. KOC came up and got his big national job because he had one of the best draft guides every year not based on team sources but in depth breakdowns of players. He's a good draft guy and not because of team sources, now he probably doesn't put quite as much time into the draft anymore now that he's an overall NBA guy, but he's still better than your average NBA analyst on the draft.
I think it's also so much different than the NFL where national rankings will have a guy projected in the 6th that gets drafted in the 3rd so teams get dinged, etc. In the NBA there are usually several tiers of players, and lots of guys ranked in the 20-80 range are interchangeable, and teams don't deviate a ton from the consensus. Now if 5 years down the line someone like AJ Griffin becomes a star then sure we can say the teams picking in the 5-15 slots screwed up or whatever, but that's not clear at all on draft night.
 

ManicCompression

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An A or a B draft grade isn't a guarantee that the player is going to work in the nba. It's simply a measure of "What value did you get out of this asset?" and sometimes value is taking a player with a really high upside but also a likelihood of a really low floor. He acknowledges in the write ups "This may not work out, but if it does..." Hence why Shaedon Sharpe is graded higher than the Keegan Murray pick, even though Murray is more likely to be a rotation player for a decade plus.
 

HomeRunBaker

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Draft grades based on player selections is dumb 95%+ of the time bc the long term result is so volotile that nobody knows. Draft grades based on moves to acquire additional draft capital without giving up equal value in return, or acquiring more value in a trade than you give up, is brilliant.

What Ainge did to acquire Tatum+ was Auerbachian brilliance. It’s what Orlando attempted to duplicate in a similar, yet in a way opposite, fashion but it was hard to execute bc they had to play their hand face up.
 

Cesar Crespo

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6'6.5 wingspan, 8'3'.5 standing reach.

incredibly athletic and not quite 20. Could do worse at 53. The things he is bad at should improve with age (decision making, shooting).
 

oumbi

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6'6.5 wingspan, 8'3'.5 standing reach.

incredibly athletic and not quite 20. Could do worse at 53. The things he is bad at should improve with age (decision making, shooting).
May I ask where you found those measurements for JD? I have seen different number on different sites, particularly for his height. We may need to wait and see.
 

Kliq

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Definitely the former. He's been playing for over a year on a messed up ankle that still is not completely healed; and apparently jumped wrong at the combine vert. According to his agent (fwiw), his vert has been at 36" everywhere he's gone since the combine. Either way, a 9'-2.5" standing reach and 7'-2" wingspan remain great physical numbers. His college career — just 11 injury-plagued games — was a nightmare, but two years ago he was the #1 prospect in his class. Nice pre-draft piece on him, for anyone interested:

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/2022-nba-draft-profile-after-flameout-at-milwaukee-patrick-baldwin-jr-is-this-years-top-wild-card-prospect/

Seems like a reasonable high-upside play at #28, where you're far more likely to find a Jacob Evans than a Jordan Poole. Fwiw, KOC's friendly grading system gave the pick an A+.
Yeah, Baldwin is the kind of guy you take a swing at that point in the draft. Weird season all-around, with his injury and his decision to play at a small school for his father. If you believe in him as a shooter, he should have the length to be competent on defense and that could be a very good NBA player. I'm bullish on him in GS, he seems like the right kind of player that will into their system and develop because he has a high basketball IQ and has good length, and should be able to shoot.
 

Tony C

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It’s 2022. Everybody wins weeeeeee!!!
To the contrary, I appreciate that he's not doing Hot Take central. The Skip Bayless thing would be to say "I HATE pick #x -- F!" and "pick #x will be a STAR - A+!". The reality is we've all seen the rankings and we can debate if, say, Holmgren will be a bust or if Paolo was picked too high given some of the critiques of him. But anyone who says they know is fooling themselves, us, or just putting out Hot Takes to get attention. This sort of ranking is acknowledging that no one in this draft was picked far from a consensus so, sure, some picks one might like better than others, but it's kind of silly to think grading should be filled with As and Fs for a bunch of players that are graded along a pretty narrow band (particularly this year).
 

Jimbodandy

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To the contrary, I appreciate that he's not doing Hot Take central. The Skip Bayless thing would be to say "I HATE pick #x -- F!" and "pick #x will be a STAR - A+!". The reality is we've all seen the rankings and we can debate if, say, Holmgren will be a bust or if Paolo was picked too high given some of the critiques of him. But anyone who says they know is fooling themselves, us, or just putting out Hot Takes to get attention. This sort of ranking is acknowledging that no one in this draft was picked far from a consensus so, sure, some picks one might like better than others, but it's kind of silly to think grading should be filled with As and Fs for a bunch of players that are graded along a pretty narrow band (particularly this year).
Yep.

Only way to fuck up this draft would be to pick outside of the consensus top 5 if you had a top 5 pick. Even then you might be right, but nobody might know for a year or three.

Most of this fucking draft is borderline rotation/role players. How anyone could point the finger now at a huge mistake is beyond comprehension. Who cares what curve they use for letter grades.